Twitter talked to Cisco's Padmasree Warrior about being its next CEO

Twitter's CEO headhunting firm has reached out to former Cisco executive Padmasree Warrior and CBS Interative boss Jim Lanzone about running the struggling internet company, according to a Bloomberg report.

Twiter is entering the fourth month of its CEO search after Dick Costolo resigned earlier this year. While Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has taken the reins as interim CEO, pressure is mounting for the company to appoint a permanent leader as executives jump ship, morale suffers, and the company's stock gets pummelled - it's down more than 20 per cent since the search began.

Twitter's board will meet on Thursday to discuss the status of the CEO search, which is being led by recruiting firm Spencer Stuart, Bloomberg said in the report.

Warrior is somewhat of a surprising candidate for the Twitter CEO job, given that her background is in hardware rather than the advertising-based consumer internet business. Warrior was Cisco's CTO and Strategy Officer but Cisco announced in July that she was leaving the company amid a reorg in which Chuck Robbins took over CEO.

Lanzone served as the CEO of struggling Internet search company Ask.com for several years before becoming CEO of CBS Interactive in 2011.

The report did not specify whether Twitter's outreach to Warrior and Lanzone had resulted in any serious discussions about the CEO job. But it mentioned that some candidates that Spencer Stuart has contacted had doubts about whether they were serious candidates, given that many believe Dorsey will eventually get tapped for the job.

Twitter has said it is looking at both internal and external candidates for the CEO job. But until now, the focus has primarily been on internal candidates such as revenue boss Adam Bain and Dorsey. Dorsey is also the CEO of digital payments company Square, and Twitter's board has previously said the permanent CEO will have to make a "full time commitment" to Twitter.

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